Tinseltown Dreams Face Reality

By TERRY PRISTIN

Published: December 9, 1998

For years, dreams of creating Hollywood-on-the-Hudson have tantalized politicians and entrepreneurs, only to collide with the financial realities of a high-risk industry.

In recent months, it looked as if those dreams might finally be realized, as several entrepreneurs announced plans for complexes of sound stages like the studio back lots in Los Angeles. They conjured up visions of more television shows flocking to New York and increasing numbers of filmmakers choosing the city for indoor filming as well as outdoor locations.

But for now, at least, only one of these projects -- the Hudson River Studios, five sound stages atop St. John's Center in lower Manhattan -- is viewed as a good prospect.

The other proposals have not fared as well.

In January, an independent film production company known as the Shooting Gallery announced that it planned to build the largest movie lot in the metropolitan area, complete with 15 sound stages, in an old industrial park in Harrison, N.J., just outside Newark, at an estimated cost of $75 million.

Instead, the company has had to scale back its ambitions. Last summer, it opened the $5 million Gun-for-Hire Film Production Center in a nine-story building at 110 Leroy Street in lower Manhattan. The center provides other independent filmmakers and the producers of mainstream films like next year's ''For Love of the Game,'' starring Kevin Costner, with the space and equipment they need while they are working in New York.

In June, two young entrepreneurs -- one a computer consultant, the other a movie set designer -- announced that they had signed a lease with the city to develop the Brooklyn Navy Yard into a $160 million complex with a dozen sound stages, to be known as New York Studios. But people on Wall Street and elsewhere who follow the entertainment industry said it was unlikely that they would be able to attract the financing to build a project of that size.

To date, the developers have been unable to raise any capital, according to an investment banker who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and they are likely to miss a December deadline set by the city to come up with a financing plan.

Nevertheless, the developers and the city remain optimistic.

Louis Madigan, one of the developers, said the deadline for financing, now reduced to $140 million, had been extended six months, and he expressed confidence that backers would be found.

City officials say they, too, believe the site will be developed. ''They are right on target,'' said Curt Ritter, a spokesman for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Several other, less-publicized proposals are also on the back burner, including a television production component at Donald Trump's huge Riverside South project on the Upper West Side, and the conversion of the city-owned Hudson River piers at 54th Street into sound stages.

In a report on the entertainment industry issued earlier this year, a nonprofit research group, Exploring the Metropolis, concluded that ''New York's sound stages are insufficient in terms of both size and number to meet today's needs.''

At the same time, the report noted that an industry in which television shows go on and off the air on short notice and films are generally shot in a few months is naturally at odds with the real estate business, which demands a higher degree of predictability.

A commitment from a major Hollywood studio to establish a beachhead in New York would certainly satisfy that demand, but there is no sign of such a commitment, especially since several movie companies have added sound stages in Los Angeles in the last few years.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Company will announce next week that it has agreed to manage New York Studios, if the Brooklyn Navy Yard project ever gets off the ground. But Sony, which has been tightening its belt, is not investing in the project, nor has it promised to make any movies or television programs there, sources both inside and outside the studio said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Madigan and his partner, Cary Dean Hart, are aggressively trying to keep the Navy Yard proposal alive. In November, they issued a news release saying the project would ''not only be a gigantic, full-service Hollywood-style movie lot, but will evolve as a waterfront entertainment hub and movie theme park that will attract millions of visitors to a revitalized downtown Brooklyn.''.

One organization trying to help the film industry expand is the New York City Investment Fund, a private company established by the financier Henry R. Kravis to stimulate job growth. The fund decided not to invest in the Brooklyn Navy Yard proposal, said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the fund. ''We would love to be in a position to support them,'' she said. ''but unless and until they are able to demonstrate that the business makes sense, it's going to be very hard to.''

Instead, the fund put $2.5 million into the Shooting Gallery's film production center. Ms. Wylde said that center has filled a void that was created when producers were no longer able to rent temporary space at the Coliseum in Columbus Circle, which is to be demolished next year. The new venture has been so successful, she said, that it is fully booked through next year, and plans are under way to add six more floors in an adjacent building.

The Shooting Gallery, best known for its 1996 film ''Sling Blade,'' has not given up its goal of building a complex of sound stages, perhaps in New York rather than New Jersey. ''It doesn't make a lot of sense to try to do everything at once,'' said Stephen E. Carlis, the company's president.

The one project that is moving forward, the Hudson River Studios, will be a rooftop addition to a building at Houston and West Streets that is used for data processing by Merrill Lynch and other large companies. Reinforcement work has already begun, said Richard Benowitz, the company president.

The company has secured 15-year leases for two of the sound stages from the producers of ''Guiding Light'' and ''As the World Turns'' and will provide technical and other services to the shows.

Philip Dixson, the managing director of Televest daytime programs, the production agency for Procter & Gamble, said his company's commitment to serve as an anchor tenant had made the project feasible.

Hal G. Rosenbluth, the president of Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, which has six sound stages and is cautiously developing plans to add another, said some stars like Bill Cosby and Michael J. Fox and directors like Ron Howard have the clout to demand that a show or movie be made in New York. But there is not enough business to warrant a profusion of sound stages, he said.

That skepticism is shared by Christopher Dixon, an entertainment analyst at Paine Webber. ''When you run the numbers,'' Mr. Dixon said, ''you can't do it.''

Photos: The Shooting Gallery's film production center on Leroy Street in lower Manhattan is said to be fully booked through next year. Larry Meistrich works the console in the Foley sound editing room. Film editing at the Shooting Gallery. Many plans for Hollywood-style movie studios in New York have been scaled back or delayed. (Photographs by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)